


Orphan Alley

by MulaneySNL



Series: Stranger Family Relations 101 [2]
Category: Community (TV), Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: An American Tail (1986), Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexual Nancy Wheeler (implied), F/F, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, I write almost everyone as gay, Light Angst, M/M, No like REALLY shitty metaphors, This is mostly Community ngl, Yes I named this fic after a poor metaphor and a movie I didn't see, You don't understand how much this movie is mentioned, seriously, shitty metaphors, what about it?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-06
Updated: 2020-02-06
Packaged: 2021-02-27 22:14:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22583113
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MulaneySNL/pseuds/MulaneySNL
Summary: "Family is complicated. You can spend years doing great things for your family, but a few bad or selfish acts can destroy all of the previous good you’ve done before you even realize it’s gone. And all that remains are the portraits on the wall, the good memories that play over and over in your mind like a broken projector, and the emptiness in your home and in your heart.Nancy Edison knew that better than anyone else. She’s grown accustomed to a certain emptiness in her life."The one where Nancy Wheeler from Stranger Things is Annie from Community's mother.
Relationships: Abed Nadir & Annie Edison, Jonathan Byers/Nancy Wheeler (past), Nancy Wheeler & Annie Edison, Nancy Wheeler/Original Female Character(s) (mentioned), Steve Harrington/Nancy Wheeler (past) (mentioned), Troy Barnes & Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes & Annie Edison, Troy Barnes & Annie Edison & Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes/Abed Nadir, Troy Barnes/Annie Edison (one-sided) (implied)
Series: Stranger Family Relations 101 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1638958
Kudos: 10





	Orphan Alley

**Author's Note:**

> This is all based off a thread I made on Twitter one night after I got drunk, the link to that is in the notes below the work if you want to check that out.
> 
> This is a fic where Annie from Community is Nancy from Stranger Thing's daughter, but this is mainly a Community fic. If you know nothing about Community, then I hope that I can introduce new characters better than Stranger Things can.  
> This takes place around season 3 of Community, which is around 2011-2012.  
> With that being said, enjoy!

Family is complicated. You can spend years doing great things for your family, but a few bad or selfish acts can destroy all of the previous good you’ve done before you even realize it’s gone. And all that remains are the portraits on the wall, the good memories that play over and over in your mind like a broken projector, and the emptiness in your home and in your heart.  
Nancy Edison knew that better than anyone else. She’s grown accustomed to a certain emptiness in her life. She left behind Nancy Wheeler, her original surname, when she married her husband years ago and became Nancy Byers. Then she left Nancy Byers when she became a news anchor and journalist in Colorado and became Nancy Edison. Nancy Byers never left though, she just evolved.  
Nancy loved her husband more than anyone else in the world, which lead to her having two kids who she shared that love with. But Nancy thought she could have it all and became blinded by her own ambition and lost sight of her husband until he left. The only things of his that remained were the kids and the divorce papers he left on the counter. That’s when Nancy Byers had officially died, and a new Nancy Edison rose up from the ashes and tried filling whatever empty hole her ex-husband left inside of her with being a good mother and the best local news anchor in the state of Colorado.  
Only one of those things actually happened, which is why Nancy Edison finds herself standing on the ratty dark carpeting under a flickering fluorescent light on the third floor of what must be the second cheapest apartment building in town. Although she’s in a business-casual royal blue dress with matching heels, she feels as disgusting as the door to apartment 303 that’s in front of her. Ugly rust marks emerging from a fifteen-year-old coat of paint that can’t hide how broken it is.  
On the other side of that door, there’s no anticipating for what’s waiting on the outside. Apartment 303’s residents were sitting in their small living area and watching _Breaking Bad_. Abed was entranced by what was on the screen in front of him and taking in every detail of the episode that he possibly could, only speaking up over the episode to point out an Easter egg or comment on how awesome something was. Troy was also very into the show and would respond at every comment Abed made with some variation of “awesome!” because he truly believed that everything Abed thought was interesting was awesome. Then there was Annie over on the couch, enjoying the show in front of her, but appreciating the company from her roommates around her more.  
Even with her move in disaster, Troy and Abed never made Annie feel as if she was not appreciated or like a third wheel in their relationship. They always asked her if she wanted to be involved in their latest hi-jinks inside of the Dreamatorium and sometimes she would join in. This was not too surprising considering that as far as she was aware, Troy has always been a kind and outgoing person. Abed was more of a surprise though, considering he always wanted as much control as possible over a situation so he could understand it to the best of his ability. But there has been an unspoken promise between the two of them since that afternoon in the Dreamatorium. Since she told him “You’ll never be alone, and you’ll always fit in”, he’s always made sure that she would know the same sentiment applied to her.  
It’s a knock at the door from a slightly shaky fist that leads to Abed pausing the episode. Troy asks “Abed, did you order something?”  
A slight frown grows on Abed’s face before answering with a simple “no”.  
“Okay.” Troy sounded confused for a moment before directing his attention to his other roommate. “Annie, did you invite someone over?” Annie shook her head and furrowed her eyebrows as a response. “Well then. None of us know what this is for, and none of us know who it is on the other side. So, I think I’m gonna answer the door and give whoever’s on the other side my full attention.”  
“Remember to tell them we’re in a polyamorous relationship and are currently worshiping Rick Moranis if they ask any questions about religion!” Abed yells to Troy while his boyfriend goes to answer the door.  
“I won’t!” Troy yells back to his boyfriend before opening the door to a woman with slightly curled shoulder-length hair drenched in royal blue with nervous eyes that become surprised faster than the boy could register. He knew who she was, he’s seen her on the sidelines of football games he’s played in and on TV almost every night growing up reporting the news. It was Nancy Edison, his roommate’s mother.  
“Troy Barnes!” she exclaims shocked. She was aware of the football player’s injury that cost him his scholarship, hell she was the one who reported on it. She also knew that he was playing football for Greendale now, she was at the press conference. She just was not expecting him to be living with her daughter, whose appearance before her facial reconstruction surgery, could be described as frumpy. But Nancy couldn’t be too surprised, considering she was also, at one point in time, a geeky girl who dated the most popular guy in her high school (even though he was a bad lay). She is suddenly taken out of her own thoughts at the sound of Troy’s voice.  
“Mrs. Edison, what are you doing here?” He sounds scared shitless and appears to be as well with his eyes wide open in absolute shock. Nancy stares down the quarterback more.  
‘Seriously?’ she thinks. ‘This is the kid who I saw every week for four years absolutely pummel guys three times his size, and he’s scared of me?’ She became unimpressed with her daughter’s choice in men within a minute. ‘Well I guess that’s what happens when you attend community college’ was her final thought as she put up her barriers, turning her eyes cold before answering the boy’s question.  
“I think you know why I’m here Troy.” The words that drip out of her mouth could be frozen with coldness in her voice. The boy looked even more afraid, if that was even possible.  
“No. I don’t. I really really don’t. I promise Mrs. Edison.” He looked like he was two minutes away from crying. Nancy found the whole thing to be pathetic in all honesty.  
“I’m here to see my daughter.” She told him bluntly, not wasting any time.  
“Okay” He nods, before nervously yelling “Annie! Your mom is here to see you!” At those words, Annie’s eyes widened in surprise. But she didn’t let out a single sound, weakness was never something Annie displayed in front of Nancy Edison before, and it would not something she would start doing now. The most she did was grab Abed, who appeared to be pretty emotionless about the prior events thus far. Her hand lightly cuffed his thin bicep and he looked at her for a moment with slightly furrowed eyebrows for a second before straightening his features and nodding at her. Like he knew the challenges at hand, or at least pretending he did, and understood that she didn’t want to be alone with her mother right now.  
Meanwhile, Nancy does her best to take in her daughter’s apartment. The wood paneling on the walls gave her flashbacks from the 70’s, but the wood floors weren’t too bad. The throwbacks continued as she saw a mini diorama of a scene from Indiana Jones as the centerpiece of the apartment. Mike was obsessed with the movie when it came out. Him and Will saw it in theaters and they would run around pretending to go on great adventures like Indie before Karen would yell at them for running in the house and they’d just bike over to the woods behind the Byers' house and continue on. Of course, that was before Will disappeared, when life was simple.  
She sees the walls of the apartment decorated with photographs of Troy, another taller boy who looks Middle Eastern, and a woman who she once proudly called her daughter. Annie was no longer the frumpy girl she was in high school. She always had her mother’s eyes, but she no longer hid them behind glasses and her frizzy hair was now straightened. The baggy sweaters of the past became short floral skirts and dresses with matching sweaters. Most of all, she looked happy in every photo.  
The walls Nancy had built shook for a second at the thought of her destroying the happiness her daughter found for herself. But she stopped that thought before she could even consider acting upon it. Her daughter’s face reached her vision. She was everything and more than the young woman she had just seen in the photos, and she would’ve gotten emotional at the thought of seeing her little girl for the first time in about three years as this beautiful grown woman if she did not just notice the giant blanket fort behind her.  
“Annie.” Nancy says coldly.  
“Mom.” Annie says through gritted teeth and frightened eyes while she tightens her grip slightly on Abed’s arm. “How did you find me?”  
Nancy held back an eye-roll at her daughter’s first question before responding “Really Annie? I’m a journalist, if I want to find someone then I’ll find them.” Nancy took another step towards her daughter, while Troy was looking for any excuse to leave the general vicinity of the conversation to avoid being caught up in it while Abed stayed by Annie’s side. “So, this is what you’re doing now? You’re living with Troy and- “, Nancy stopped and looked at the unknown boy in front of her expecting a response but was met with only a blank stare and a monotone expression. She let this go on a few seconds longer than she wanted before getting slightly irritated and asking “My apologies. What’s your name?” while pointing to him.  
The boy responds in a monotone voice with “Abed”.  
“Abed, yes, it’s a pleasure to meet you.” She said trying to mask the judgement and irritation in her voice with kindness. “I’m Nancy Edison, Annie’s mother.”  
“I know who you are.” Abed told her with the same monotone and blank stare. “You’re the TV reporter who my parents would watch on TV every night at 10 on the local NBC station”  
Nancy gave up trying to read the boy in front of her at all, he was weirding her out and was not the reason she was here. She turned her attention towards her daughter, whose eyes no longer glistened in fear but sparked with anger, as she spoke up “Mom leave him alone. Yes, I live with Troy and Abed now. No, it is none of your concern or business that I do. If that’s all you wanted, you’re welcome to leave.”  
Nancy raised her eyebrows and tilted her head as if she was accepting a challenge of sorts, “Honey, I’m here to see you and catch up with you.” Her eyes drifted to the blanket fort in the room and her words started to drip with more judgement after each passing word because how could she not? There was a fucking blanket fort in the room. “You’ve just never seemed like the type of girl to live with two other men, that’s all.”  
Troy butted in, once again, trying to get out of this situation “Hey Abed, we should go watch that new episode of _Cougar Town_ we recorded.” But Abed didn’t budge. Annie’s hand was still holding onto his arm, so she still needed him.  
“Maybe in a little bit Troy” he responded. Troy looked even more freaked out and started looking for any exit in sight that he could use.  
“Well a lot of things have changed since I last saw you.” Annie said trying to hide the anger in her voice, and there was the slightest glint of light that flashed in her eye. “Besides, you’re in absolutely no place to judge me considering what you did with Francesca.”  
One of Abed’s eyebrows peaked in curiosity, this story was starting to get interesting.  
Nancy was slightly taken aback by her daughter’s words before responding “What Fran and I did is none of your concern or business. She has absolutely nothing to do with this! She’s not the one who lost everything she worked for because she had no self-control.” Annie let go of Abed’s bicep and stood up, her hands balled up into fists.  
“I wonder who I got that from.” She responded in an angry monotone, fury raged on in both her and Nancy’s eyes. Troy took this as his opportunity to get the fuck out, things were about to escalate quickly, and it was going to get ugly. He walked over behind the couch, tapped Abed’s shoulder three times, grabbed his reluctant boyfriend’s hand and walked through the door behind them into the Dreamatorium.  
Nancy notices their actions, but she barely pays it any attention due to her infuriated daughter in front of her. She wanted so badly to shut down her daughter’s comment with an even more scathing insult, but that wouldn’t solve anything. She came to this disgusting building for a reason, and it wasn’t to increase the distance between her and her daughter. So, she sucks up her pride and takes a deep breath. “And I’m sorry about that, but that’s because I wanted you to be better. I wanted you to be so successful that you would never have to deal with the bullshit that I had to go through.” Annie will never fully know or understand the absolute shit her mother went through and would never believe her if she told her.  
The fury in Annie’s eyes lessen for just a moment. “I could have handled the loneliness without climbing into my coworker’s bed. And yes, I would know, I dealt with it for months after you stopped talking to me.”  
Nancy grew irritated and started letting her anger show more, “Oh please, you did the same thing.”  
Annie started to look confused. “What are you talking about?”  
Her mother almost laughs in response, “Troy Barnes! The boy you had a crush on all throughout high school. The boy who lost everything he could have been the exact same night you did.”  
Annie looks almost horrified with shock at her mother’s accusation “Wait just a moment. You don’t get to be proud of yourself just because you think you know a situation. You display your stupid Emmy in the living room and let it blind you into thinking that you’re some sort of expert on reading people.” Annie was walking a fine line between laughing and crying right now. This entire situation seemed ridiculous. “But you’re wrong. Troy Barnes is not only one of my closest friends and classmates, he’s also gay as hell.”  
Nancy was dumbfounded for a moment; how could she miss it? It all seemed so much more obvious now that she knew. She was about to defend herself before her daughter cut off her words.  
“Even if we were, in some other timeline, having sex, it still would not be any of your damn business.” Annie said with a raised voice as she started peppering emotion into her words. If Nancy wants to see how Annie’s changed, she shouldn’t hold anything back.  
For the first time since her father left, Annie saw her mother show real emotion. Anger and hurt fumed from every pore on Nancy’s body. Her eyebrows furrowed as her lip started to quiver slightly. “But it is my business. I’m your mother, you have my last name, and, as much as you’d hate to admit it, you are a part of me. I gave you everything I could to get you to succeed, and I was there for you when your father wasn’t.”  
“I don’t blame dad for leaving, you’re such a conniving bitch I’m shocked that he was with you for as long as he was.” Annie yelled, refusing to let herself be tempted or hurt by her mother’s words. She took a deep breath and calmed her voice before saying “But you did give me everything. Adderall included. And you were there, you watched me try to straighten the lines of the football field from the sidelines, and never thought your daughter needed help. You saw me popping pills like they were Smarties and did nothing. The only time I got the help I needed was when the police were called, and I became an embarrassment to that side of town.” Annie pierced Nancy with her frozen angry eyes before saying “Mothers don’t do that.”  
Nancy was nearly speechless; the words seemed caught in her throat and flew around in her brain loudly. “I did what I thought was best for you!” she yelled.  
“How was that in any way what was best for me!” Annie yelled in reply.  
“Because I wanted you to succeed.” Nancy tried to explain.  
“Not everybody has the same definition of success! I’m surprised that you didn’t learn that after Dad left” Annie retorted.  
“Well I’m sorry I’m not your father and that I don’t understand how you can see me wanting to make sure you’re self-sufficient as a bad thing! I’m sorry that I repress my fucking emotions because I have been doing it for decades! I’ve always had to play the fun, nice, smart girl who won’t cry when she’s the reason her best friend is dead or will get angry when she’s harassed at work! Or sob because she’s so fucking lonely, but god forbid, she can’t hold it together! I’m sorry that I did the best that I could with what I had!” Nancy yelled as tears streamed down her face.  
“You know what? I am so sick and tired of all of your excuses! I’m an adult now, and I don’t need to tolerate them any longer!” Annie yells before storming into the Dreamatorium while her mother cried.  
When Annie entered the Dreamatorium, she could tell that Troy and Abed had been listening to her conversation with Nancy through the walls. “You heard all of that didn’t you?”, she asks the duo with tears streaming down her face. They nod their heads in response as Annie lets out a loud sigh.  
“Annie, as someone with a grandmother who is a firm believer in corporal punishment and a father who kicked me out of the house because having his 20 year old son living with him and his 22 year old girlfriend made things ‘awkward’, I know family problems. And as someone who knows family problems, let me say that this is the worst family problem I’ve ever seen.” Troy said, as Annie rolled her eyes because she did not want to talk about her mother more than she had to. “Talking to your mother alone seems like one of the most terrifying things I could witness, and that says a lot because I used to live with Pierce. But I will go out there and ask her to leave if you want me to because you’re right. You don’t have to deal with this.”  
Annie’s voice quivers as she says “No Troy, don’t waste your time on that woman. She never gave me a second of her time when I was at rock bottom. So, let’s just stay in here and do the same thing until she gets the hint that I got years ago.”  
The trio stood in silence, with the occasional sniffle or two from Annie, within black and orange gridded walls of the room until that was broken by Abed.  
“Annie, have you ever seen _An American Tail_?”  
“What?” she asked, confused as to how he thought this was at all relevant.  
“The 1986 animated Don Bluth movie _An American Tail_. Have you seen it?” Abed asked again as if adding those minor details would give her all of the clarity that she would need. She was slightly irritated but held back any venomous words because this is just how Abed understands the world.  
“Yes, Abed. I’ve seen it.” She responded, hoping that would be the end of it.  
“Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool. Cool.” He responded rapidly, before slowing down his words to his usual, but still quite fast, speaking pace. “Do you remember the scene after the fire where Fievel goes to Orphan Alley and cries in a puddle?”  
Annie thought for a few moments before the scene started registering in her head. “Yeah, I remember that” she responded.  
“That’s when he had given up all hope of seeing his family again, which is why he went to Orphan Alley. He thought that’s where he belonged and that he was meant to be alone just because he made an innocent mistake and fell off the boat.” Abed summarized to her. Annie thought that she knew where this conversation was headed. That Nancy was like Fievel and made an “innocent mistake” and that Annie should somehow forgive her, so Nancy won’t have to be alone forever. Annie likes Abed, but he didn’t understand what she went through before she came to Greendale.  
“My mother didn’t just make an innocent mistake though Abed.” Annie pointed out.  
“I’m not saying she did” he responded. “I’m just saying that sometimes we all make innocent mistakes, and as a result we can lose the people we care about.”  
At this point, Annie was starting to understand what he was trying to say. “I’m Fievel?”  
Abed gave her a short nod in reply before going on. “Technically yes, but Fievel wasn’t the only mouse in Orphan Alley. In a way, I’m there too.”  
This is when Troy butted in “But that wasn’t your ‘mistake’, hell you never made a ‘mistake’! Your mom’s just a coward. That’s on her, not you.”  
“Troy, that’s not the point I’m trying to make right now.” Abed told his boyfriend trying to avoid another speech that would only delay what Abed thought should be done. “The point I’m trying to make is that right now I’m in my own Orphan Alley and I will probably never get out of it, but you have the chance to. It all depends on whether or not you think that you should be alone.”  
“But I’ll never be alone, I have you guys and the rest of the study group.” She pointed out to him.  
“We’re just the other mice there. And although we have a little found family now, we don’t know what the future holds for us past graduation. We may end up scattered all across the country while one of us is lost at sea, lose contact over time, and that could be it for us. Fievel made friends who cared about him while he was lost, but that never stopped him from missing his family” Abed told her bleakly. “Besides we’ve already established that this study group could be considered incestuous if we defined ourselves as a family.”  
“So, you think I should forgive her?” Annie asked.  
“Not really, but you shouldn’t cut her out of your life for your own sake.” Abed replied.  
Annie realized that he had a point and groaned. “Fine you dumb gays, I’ll talk to her” she proclaimed before leaving the Dreamatorium.  
As Annie leaves the room, she’s met with her mother crying in front of her. It’s a strange sight considering she never saw Nancy cry in front of anyone before. “We need to talk”, Annie starts out by saying. Nancy looks up at her daughter but makes no effort to hide the tears she shed earlier, there was no reason to. “Not just yell at each other for things we did in the past, but actually talk about our issues like adults.” Nancy looks up at her and gives Annie a small smile.  
“I agree.”  
Annie then ushers Nancy over to the couch and makes sure she doesn’t sit near the stain that memorialized when Abed spilled Code Red on the couch last month. Annie takes a deep breath and starts out the conversation. “I’m sorry for how I acted earlier today, I should not have brought up Francesca. But I am not sorry for everything else I said because I fully meant it”.  
Nancy nodded before taking her own deep breath. “I’m sorry that I failed you as a mother.”  
Annie stopped her right there. “You didn’t fail me. You raised a daughter with perfect grades, who is trying to make the best out of her current situation. Yes, you made some mistakes and you tried to justify them by entirely throwing me under the bus. I am not ready to forgive you for that, and I don’t know if I ever will.”  
Nancy sat in silence for a few moments after her daughter’s words. “You’re right. I tried to justify the mess I made and only made everything worse. I don’t know why I was justifying it earlier today because the reason I originally came down here today wasn’t to judge or shame you. It’s because I missed you and I wanted to apologize. I guess I became so used to constantly feeling like I have to defend myself that I lost sight of what I was actually defending and who I was hurting in the process. I don’t blame you for not forgiving me, I wouldn’t forgive me either. You were going to be great on your own, you didn’t need me there to stuff you with drugs and insecurity. I threw my pent-up insecurity at you like some deranged pageant mom on _Toddlers & Tiaras_. I was insecure of how smart other people thought I was, how hardworking other people thought I was. And instead of worrying about normal teenage girl things like crushes, fashion, and best friends, you worried about my fucking issues. I took away part of your childhood, I’m guessing that’s why there’s a blanket fort in the middle of the living room, to reclaim some part of your life that I took from you.”  
Annie didn’t have the heart to tell her the real reason the blanket fort was there, but she didn’t want to explain the weird reality of it all to her mother. This clearly was not the time, her mother was crying and blaming herself for more than she actually caused.  
“The funny thing is that I don’t feel as if I’ve lost much. Yes, I lost my scholarships and my chance to go to an Ivy League school, but then I would have never met Troy, Abed, or the other friends I met at Greendale. We played some awesome games of paintball where I got to put use to those shooting lessons you gave me years ago. I got to play Dungeons and Dragons, which Uncle Mike told me you used to play with him years ago, and I’m not bad at it. I don’t feel as if some part of my life has been stolen away from me because I have almost everything I need in order to be happy. The only thing I’ve lost throughout the whole pill popping debacle is you.”  
Nancy was pleasantly surprised by her daughter’s revelation and gave her a small smile. “You weren’t as philosophical before you left.”  
Annie gave her a small smile back. “Well, things have changed quite a bit since then.”  
“And that’s perfectly fine. I’m excited to meet this new Annie” Nancy replied.  
Annie pretends to sit up a little bit straighter and extends her hand to Nancy, “Well it’s nice to meet you Nancy Edison” she jokes. Nancy then also sits up a little straighter as well and shakes her daughter’s hand.  
“Oh please, call me Nancy Wheeler.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thread that inspired this work:
> 
> https://twitter.com/MulaneySNL/status/1220902454017036290?s=20
> 
> Anyways, I hope you all enjoyed this. Please leave feedback, thoughts, ideas, and kudos.  
> I'm thinking about writing a sequel to this where Annie meets up with Jonathan for the first time in years, or another one with Nancy that isn't mostly them yelling at one another. If you have any ideas or suggestions, I'd love to hear them!


End file.
